


New Faith

by LittleRaven



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), F/M, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s07e22 Chosen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 23:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20200018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: During a well-deserved tour of the European continent, Buffy and Dawn make a stop in Norway. Buffy has to go on an adventure.





	New Faith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emmeebee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmeebee/gifts).

> This is handwaving away the timelines; I was thinking most of Thor's character development happened without the Avengers movies having existed, so as to keep the girls unaware of he was before they met him. Also, Thanos did not happen.

Well. Chilly was different. 

Buffy did not resist the urge to rub her arms and hold herself. Beside her, Dawn struggled with her bag—normal life or no, she’d been unable to leave the magic books behind. Her sister, she reflected, had always had a different opinion on what constituted a fun and normal life; even her experience as the Key hadn’t changed her perspective. Buffy ended the self-hugging to help her steady the luggage.

Before her, now they were out of the airport, was Norway. It wouldn’t have been her first stop in Europe. It wouldn’t even have been on the list, save for Dawn. Dawn, remembering her steady childhood diet of myth and fantasy fiction, the soft-edged illustrations of trolls in the stories, could not do other than insist on a stop here, and Buffy could not do other than indulge her. She’d promised to show her the world, after all. She’d promised that she wanted to live in it. 

And hey, it wasn’t her money. Buffy had known Giles was rich, and the Watcher’s Council richer; she now knew that she should’ve been pressing them for a living wage when she got Giles’ his own back. 

She hadn’t wanted them to be blown up, and she wouldn’t say it to Giles—he’d suffered enough for it, however badly it had treated him—but them getting the Council’s wealth was definitely karma. And irony. Ironic karma. 

Therefore, she’d graciously accepted both the money Giles allowed her to draw from those resources and the break she’d been given from the “finding Slayers and doing some consciousness raising” group that had replaced the Council to actually get a vacation. For the first time in over six years. The first time ever for Dawn since, as she had been constantly reminded throughout their trip, the fake memories did not count. 

Hence, the standing in the cold, waiting for their taxi, called in English after several enthusiastic attempts at using one the country’s official languages. Her sister’s Norwegian was not good enough to deal with one over the phone. Modern languages had never before been as useful for them to learn as demon and ancient languages. 

Buffy had to concede that it was at least different. None of the heat she was used to, and no desert. Scenery sounded good, even if the bundled up style she’d need required a little more of her effort to look good in.

Anything was better than the hellmouth. 

Better, she reflected, was not so easy to come by. Buffy raised her hand to her sister’s stone cheek. No matter what she’d called her in the past, Dawn was no troll. Buffy was going to make sure she got to enjoy her chosen trip. The only thing she needed to do was go save her first.

Buffy let her shoulders slump for a moment, just to feel the tiredness pressing up from inside her, and then pushed it away. There was work to do. 

She wasn’t going to talk to him, at first, beyond the basics. Sister turned to stone. She was going to solve the problem. She wasn’t going to be patient about it. 

He seemed to be willing to do the talking instead. Really chatty, this Thor. She thought of Glory. Were all gods like this when you had to deal with them in person? He wasn’t as self-consciously fashionable, in that old t-shirt; this made for one difference she could be sure of, but not the kind she could compliment. Too bad. 

“I don’t know you,” she told him, “and you caught me on a bad day.” 

He surprised her with a quick nod. “I’ve had my fair share of those.” He put his hand on her shoulder, briefly. Despite the warmth of the gesture, his one bright eye seemed to darken. She remembered Xander, then, and softened. 

“Yeah. It’s not exactly a forgiving world. But you’re helping me, so.”

She shrugged. It wasn’t the time to try to learn his tragedies. He wasn’t offering to teach her, and she wasn’t doing that for him either. It was enough to understand they both knew the feeling. 

He tilted his head, and she considered giving him a chance to respond, before turning to lead the way up the mountain path. 

“Still not calling you a god,” she called back over her shoulder. 

“Call me what you like,” he said easily. 

Not offended, she thought. Not bothered and not joking to play anything down, though it didn’t seem as if this was due to a lack in the humor department. Buffy allowed herself to think how unusual this was in a man, let alone a supernatural being. 

It was, she granted, different. 

She didn’t mind calling this fun. Wrestling with responsibility and feeling the limits of her narrow life had that difficult in the past, though when times were easier she had felt no shame in showing the pleasure felt in a good staking, and in the good pun that preceded it; she’d even take the time, when she was bored or working, to come up with a line to pass the time. 

Buffy grunted, then dislodged the slime-covered creature stuck to her fist by tossing it in Thor’s direction.

To fight, and feel at ease despite the urgency that brought her to act—it had only been a few years since her mother’s death, but it felt like longer. To fight in the presence of an ally she had no need or responsibility to protect, whose loyalties and nature did not make him someone from whom to protect others—or herself—that was more distant still. 

She’d been a girl caught up in faith; it was only now that Buffy could start not to fault her. The girl had grown, that was all. Knowledge, all the crap she’d gone through. She’d still come out of it. 

Maybe faith was still hers to have.

Dawn, uncursed and undaunted, was rifling through her books. “So, I don’t want to be rude, and you definitely look the part—except for the not having red hair bit, and, well—” she stopped, then started again. “You seem a bit too friendly to be a god.”

Buffy turned to look at Thor, too out-of-place in their hotel room, yet seeming comfortable, even used to being spoken to like a person. She smiled, just enough to let it show, and let her sister interrogate him.


End file.
